Long-Distance Dispersal

This spread in velocity is called modal dispersion and is the principle limit to the use of multimode fibres for long-distance transmissive applications. 

Miller (1989) is the question of how such an ancient organism has come to exist on a comparatively new oceanic island. Long-distance dispersal is an unlikely explanation for the present situation. Dispersal over shorter distances from island to island seems a reasonable possibility, with subsequent disappearance of many, or apparently all in the present case, of the intermediate stepping stones. Invocation of island hopping, after all, has many precedents. As Miller (1989) pointed out, obviously some vascular plant lineages have survived, some of which may have histories that reach back to the Antarctic flora. Needless to say, deep phylogenetic analyses would be helpful in addressing this question. 

It is likely sigifificant that L. glaberrima is self-compatible, whereas most other species of Lasthenia are self-incompatible. Long-distance dispersal of a single propagule of L. glaberrima would then have been sufficient to establish the species in Chile. It is, of course, entirely possible that propagules from one or another of the self-incompatible species could also have made the journey, but without a reproduc-tively compatible partner their fates were sealed. 

The biota of long-distance dispersal. IV. Genetic systems in the flora of oceanic... 

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